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JERUSALEM, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Benjamin Netanyahu set about forging a new ruling coalition on Wednesday after Israeli voters fed up with state coddling of ultra-Orthodox Jews chastised him by propelling an upstart centrist party to prominence.

Tuesday's vote crystallised demands for attention to bread-and-butter issues over the ambitions of religiously fired hardliners, and largely sidelined foreign policy issues such as Iran's nuclear plans and Palestinian aspirations.

Supporters of Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party celebrate after the exit polls were announced at the party's headquarters in Tel Aviv January 22, 2013. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightist Likud-Beitenu party came out on top in Israel's election on Tuesday, exit polls said, but centre-left parties made surprising gains, potentially complicating coalition building. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party celebrate after the exit polls were announced at the party's headquarters in Tel Aviv January 22, 2013. Exit polls in Israel on Tuesday showed a bloc of right-wing parties winning between 61 and 62 seats in the country's 120-member parliament, potentially enough for a governing majority. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other politicians cast their ballots in a general election expected to push Israel further to the right and away from peace talks with Palestinians. Lindsey Parietti reports.

LA PAZ, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez is undergoing physical therapy in Cuba as part of his fight to recover from cancer surgery, his ally Bolivian President Evo Morales said on Tuesday.

"We have good news about our brother, President Hugo Chavez. He is already undergoing physical therapy to return to his country," Morales said.

A woman holds her baby as a polling station staff member assists her in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Elon Moreh, near Nablus January 22, 2013. Israelis voted on Tuesday in an election that is expected to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu win a third term in office, pushing the Jewish state further to the right, away from peace with the Palestinians and towards a showdown with Iran. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man (L) stands near polling station staff members as they check his identity book at a polling station in Jerusalem January 22, 2013. Israelis voted on Tuesday in an election that is expected to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu win a third term in office, pushing the Jewish state further to the right, away from peace with the Palestinians and towards a showdown with Iran. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Prisoners wait to cast their ballots for the parliamentary election at Rimonim prison near the Israeli city of Raanana January 22, 2013. Israelis voted on Tuesday in an election that is expected to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu win a third term in office, pushing the Jewish state further to the right, away from peace with the Palestinians and towards a showdown with Iran. REUTERS/Nir Elias

A man holds an envelope containing his ballot before casting his vote for the parliamentary elections at a polling station in a retirement home in Jerusalem January 22, 2013. Israelis voted on Tuesday in an election that is expected to hand hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a third term, opening the way for a showdown with Iran and bolstering opponents of Palestinian statehood. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

"There is a king sitting on the throne in Israel and I want to dethrone him," the 58-year-old retired elementary school teacher said, her gaze intense. "But it looks like that won't happen," she quickly added, looking away.

PARIS Jan 22 (Reuters) - The United States has started transporting French soldiers and equipment to Mali as part of its logistical aid to French forces fighting Islamist militants in the north of the country, a U.S. official said on Tuesday.

BAGHDAD Jan 22 (Reuters) - Three blasts, including a suicide bomber attack near an army base, killed least 17 people across Baghdad on Tuesday, the latest violence as Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki faces increasing pressure from a political crisis.

The most deadly explosions took place in Taji, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, where a suicide bomber driving a car packed with explosives detonated his bomb near an army base, killing at least seven people and wounding 24.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called on Friday for NATO to reinvent itself as a more agile alliance with a broader outlook embracing the Asia-Pacific and able to respond to new threats from Islamic militancy.

Panetta said as the alliance winds down the Afghanistan war and cuts defense spending to fit shrinking budgets, it would still face challenges from Islamist militants as well as countries like Iran and North Korea.

WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama told British Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday that the United States "values a strong UK in a strong European Union," the White House said.

Cameron, who has faced calls from some in his own party for a referendum on whether Britain should exit the EU, postponed on Thursday a much-anticipated speech on Britain's future role in the EU because of the hostage crisis at an Algerian gas plant where Britons and Americans are believed to be among those held.

Obama and Cameron, in a telephone call, also consulted on the Algeria hostage situation, and the leaders expressed support for the French military operation against Islamist militants in Mali, the White House said.

"The prime minister set forth his thinking on UK-EU relations in light of his upcoming speech," the White House said.

VIENNA, Jan 17 (Reuters) - U.N. nuclear inspectors and Iran appear to have failed in talks this week to finalise a deal to resume their long-stalled investigation into suspected atom bomb research in the Islamic state, a diplomatic source said on Thursday.

The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran were expected to hold a further meeting on Feb. 12, following two days of negotiations in Tehran this week that ended on Thursday, the source added.

VIENNA, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Senior U.N. nuclear inspectors were expected to return to Vienna early on Friday after two days of talks in Tehran about Iran's disputed atomic activity, a diplomatic source said on Thursday.

There was no immediate sign that the negotiations between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran had achieved any breakthrough in unblocking an IAEA investigation into suspected nuclear weapons research in the Islamic state.

TACOMA, Wash., Jan 17 (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier accused of killing 16 villagers in Afghanistan deferred his plea to charges of premeditated murder before a U.S. military court on Thursday.

U.S. prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, a veteran of four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, who is accused of gunning down the villagers - mostly women and children - in their homes in two villages in Afghanistan's Kandahar province.

Bales, wearing green military dress, entered his deferred plea through one of his defense attorneys, who also waived reading of charges against Bales.

Bales answered "Sir, yes sir" when asked if he understood his case could result in the death penalty.

Reuters: Britain not given prior notice of Algerian operation, would have preferred to have been informed, British PM spokesman says. British PM Cameron told Algerian PM after operation started that he was "extremely concerned" about "very grave and serious situation."

WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - FBI Director Robert Mueller visited Libya on Thursday, an FBI official said, as U.S. investigators continued their inquiry into the September attack in Benghazi in which U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died.

"The director's visit was an opportunity to discuss ongoing cooperation on a number of issues," said the FBI official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

ADDIS ABABA, Jan 17 (Reuters) - South Sudan has started withdrawing its army from the border with Sudan to set up a buffer zone between the African neighbours, the government said on Thursday.

The withdrawal would be completed by Feb 4, South Sudan's government said in a statement, adding that it expected Sudan to do the same in what would be a step forward in efforts to cool tensions on the border.

Both countries had agreed in September to set up the buffer zone along their disputed border, a condition to restart key oil exports, but have not implemented it yet.

Ble Goude was a powerful figure under the regime of ex-president Laurent Gbabo but fled when Gbagbo was ousted from power with French military support after refusing to accept a 2010 election defeat to Alassane Ouattara.

Ouattara's government accuses Ble Goude of violent and economic crimes.

(Reporting by Gerard Bon in Paris and Ange Aboa in Abidjan; Writing by David Lewis; editing by Daniel Flynn)

More than 100 people were shot, stabbed or possibly burned to death by government forces in the Syrian city of Homs, a monitoring group said on Thursday, and fierce fighting raged across the country.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said women and children were among the 106 people killed by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad forces who stormed Basatin al-Hasawiya, a poor district on the edge of Homs, on Tuesday.

Mali's Foreign Minister Tieman Hubert Coulibaly (L) talks to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton during an European Union emergency foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, to discuss the crisis in Mali January 17, 2013. European Union governments agreed on Thursday to go ahead with a plan to send hundreds of military personnel to train Malian government forces in fighting Islamist rebels, as a civil war Mali spilled across its borders, an EU diplomat said. REUTERS/Yves Herman

BADSHAHPUR/NEW DELHI - On the evening of December 26, as an Indian government-chartered jet was heading to Singapore with a critically injured New Delhi gang rape victim on board, the teenage survivor of another gang rape was taking her own life.

After writing a suicide note on a page torn from a notebook that named her alleged attackers and accused them of destroying her life, the 17-year-old schoolgirl drank pesticide typically used on the wheat fields surrounding her village in the northern state of Punjab.

By the time she was found, she was in agony and vomiting repeatedly, relatives said. Little-seen television footage shows her arriving at a hospital wrapped in a red blanket, unconscious or already dead, as her weeping mother cradles her head.

The brutality of last month's gang rape in New Delhi, which led to the death of the woman, generated anger across the country. But the police handling of the Punjab assault has also sparked outrage and debate about how the police and judicial system often fail victims.

ALGIERS - Fifteen foreign hostages escaped the desert siege of a gas pumping station in Algeria, Algeria's Ennahar television reported on Thursday.

An Algerian security source said the gunmen, who stormed the gas facility on Wednesday, were demanding safe passage out with their captives. The gunmen say they have been holding as many as 41 foreigners as well as scores of Algerians.

Ennahar said 40 Algerians had been freed, mainly women working as translators.

BEIRUT - More than 100 people including women and children were killed by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday in Homs, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday.

The Britain-based group said some of the 106 victims were burned in their homes and others were either shot or stabbed when pro-Assad forces stormed Basatin al-Hasawiya, a impoverished district of the central Syrian city.

WASHINGTON No negotiations can be held with North Korea until it improves its behavior, a White House official said on Wednesday, raising questions about U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's offer to begin talks with Pyongyang any time and without pre-conditions. | Video

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